3 Things I Learned From DraftKings First Millionaire Maker

As many of you read this weekend on twitter, I entered almost 300 lineups into DraftKings Millionaire Maker on this past Sunday in hopes that one of them would make me a million bucks. The result? Well, it’s not over yet, but I’m almost certainly not going to take 1st. I have one lineup with 187 points and Percy Harvin left to play, so only an incredible performance by Harvin would have me even sniffing the top 5. Even though this weekend was not successful by any means, I learned a lot about strategy in a large field tournament like the Millionaire Maker, and this knowledge should help me have a more successful weekend on this coming Sunday for DraftKings Millionaire Maker 2.0. The following are 3 things I learned from this past Sunday.

Don’t Forget about the High Upside Players

Here is the probable million dollar lineup for DraftKings Millionaire Maker this week.

The first thing you see when you look at this lineup is the presence of Peyton Manning at QB. Manning was someone that we didn’t even mention in our position rankings or any articles throughout the week, mostly because his price was high and his matchup wasn’t great. And I still maintain that in hindsight, when considering value, he wasn’t one of the best QB choices for week 5. But one thing that we need to consider when making lineups for the Millionaire Maker is upside, and Manning has a ton of it. We saw last year that Manning could have games like this every so often, even in mediocre matchups. The same goes for Demaryius Thomas, who had a quiet season up until this point, but who is clearly capable of absolutely incredible games like few WRs in this league. Despite any matchup considerations, I feel like you should throw in high upside plays like these every so often when constructing your lineups, in case they have a memorable week like this one. Otherwise, you’re going to be sitting here like me on Sunday lamenting your lack of foresight.

Don’t Overuse your Favorite Plays

There were a few guys I really liked this week. One was Kelvin Benjamin, who’s matchup I absolutely loved. I also loved Reggie Bush and Rashad Jennings as well. But in the end, having too many of these players in my lineups cost me big time. Benjamin dudded, and Jennings and Bush got injured during the first half of their respective games. Having too many of these players in my lineups just killed me, and while I certainly should be playing the players (like these 3) I love in many of my lineups, I don’t need to use them so much. I’m only looking for one of my lineups to hit, so having even 25% of my lineups containing 1 or 2 of these players would have been enough to get the combinations of those players with other good plays that I needed.

In fact, I actually had the winning lineup combination and plausibly could have played this lineup if I wasn’t so obssessed with those 3 plays. All the players below in this sample lineup were guys I played in multiple lineups, and would have fit under the $50,000 salary cap. I’d like to preface this by saying that I’m sure there are many players who could take all the players they played and make a lineup even better than this, I’m not complaining. I’m just illustrating why it may be good to try as many combinations and permutations as possible and not be so obssessed with specific players.

This lineup would have won by 15 points and it doesn’t even include Demaryius Thomas. Sometimes, you don’t even need the best player of the week to win, you just need a combo of all plays you think are solid.

Don’t Write off a Player Because of One Bad Game Away From Home

We already mentioned Peyton Manning, who looked atrocious at Seattle weeks before and then picked apart an Arizona team that’s actually pretty good defensively yesterday. One player I haven’t mentioned is Tom Brady, who’s performance at Kansas City had the media talking about his future as a Patriots thoughout this week. Then, he silenced all his critics and torched the tough Bengals D for 300 yards and 2 TDs. It’s a fact that players play better when they’re at home, which is why Vegas spots the home team 3 points when they set their lines. So when you see a player play poorly away, don’t overreact. Consider him for the following week.

DraftKings is holding the Millionaire Maker again this week. I won’t be entering 300 different lineups like I did yeterday, mostly because I’m spending the weekend in Phoenix, but I’ll probably try to enter it 100-150 times. With this new information in mind, I’m hoping I’ll have better luck.

About the Author

Max J Steinberg Max Steinberg is a professional poker player and a top Daily Fantasy player who uses his creativity and mathematical abilities he cultivated as a poker player to win money on both DraftKings and FanDuel. He already has several big tournament scores to his name including the Victiv Bowl and countless MLB Monster wins. Follow him on twitter @maxjsteinberg.